This past weekend was an amazing weekend – one of the most incredible in recent memory, and I’m going to have to write about it in installments, as though trying to create what I’m sure would go down in history as the world’s least- watched mini-series. Or maybe it would work better as the world’s most boring book. But living it was far from boring- and if I have even one sliver of my father’s gift for story- telling, maybe I will manage to give you at least a hint of how wonderful a weekend it was and why I feel so extraordinarily blessed as I look back upon it.
The weekend began Friday morning with me teaching the first of four opera courses for Adventures in Lifelong Learning- but more about that later. After that came a series of voice lessons with a couple of soloists for something later in the weekend – more on that later as well. Eventually- although not until maybe 4:00 or so, Kathy and I had piled ourselves into the car for a trip to Milwaukee in what by her calculation was the first evening in a month where neither of us had anything we had to do. A quick check of the calendar confirmed her calculations and confirmed the fact that it was way past time for us to get out of Dodge for something we almost never get to do anymore- a little shopping trip. Mayfair was the destination, but with a quick stop first at the Cheesecake Factory for supper.
At the time, this little trip to Milwaukee was fun- an overdue treat for ourselves- completely pleasant- but now that I look back on it, I am even more grateful for it. I am forever chasing my tail this time of year- and Kathy does, too, to a lesser extent- and I’m not sure how the rest of the weekend would have proceeded if I hadn’t had this chance just to be with the woman I am so fortunate to call my wife. . . someone who puts up with more than you can imagine, who is the unsung heroine behind the scenes in so much of what I manage to accomplish, and someone who makes life so much more vibrant for me than it would otherwise be. Maybe I’m wising up in my old age- that when I look back on a weekend which included a spectacular Christmas program at church, a wonderful Kenosha Pops band concert, Romeo and Juliet from the Met, and Handel’s Messiah, the memory of walking through Pottery Barn with my wife is as sweet as the rest of it.
P.S.- Saturday morning, after dropping off Weston Noble at the MIlwaukee airport, I was heading back to Racine trying to get to Holy Communion in time for a 9am rehearsal for the Christmas program. The first part of the trip back, through a fairly heavy snow, was okay – but by the time I was out in the country and having just driven through the little town of Husher, I found myself on a completely snow- packed and terribly slick highway and feeling for all the world like I was about to go into the ditch. I’ve never been so relieved in all my life to see the sign indicating that I was entering the Racine city limits (although on the side street where the church is located, I probably had my closest call of all.)
Anyway, right after I picked up Mr. Noble, I played a track off of my CD “God gives me wings” so he could hear the voice of Trevor Parker, who he had met a couple of nights earlier, and I just let the disk continue. So by the time I was on my back to Racine, the CD had cycled back to the beginning and eventually came the song “Everything can Change” – which is basically a song about how you need to tell the people you love that you love them TONIGHT – and don’t wait for tomorrow- because in an instant, everything can change. And no sooner has that song played than the roads start getting truly terrible and my ever-vivid imagination was painting mental pictures of me freezing to death in a snow drift.
I think it should be fairly obvious by now that I did in fact survive that harrowing trip home- and you had better believe that when I got to church, one of the first things I did was take Kathy aside and just tell her that I loved her. Actually, the very first person I saw upon walking into church was Eric Carlson, and he got a big hug from me as well – and is probably still wondering that that was all about. There’s nothing like dangerously slippery roads to get you thinking about the special people in your life.
pictured: from a “date” earlier this year